gwen: the second term starts with a bang. women in combat, including hillary, as the g.o.p. plots its future. tonight on "washington wewe." >> we cannot mistake absolutism for principles. substitute spectacle for politics. or treat name calling as reasoned debate. we must act knowing that our work will be on purpose. gwen: if monday's inauguration celebration was about optimism, the rest of the week was about reality. as hillary clinton gave as good as she got. >> with all due respect, the fact is we had four dead

americans. was it because of a protest or because guys out for a walk one night decided they would go kill some americans? what difference at this point does it make? gwen: as the pentagon officially welcomed women into the ranks of combat warriors. >> at land and sea and in the air, we both wear the same uniform and fire the same weapons and most importantly, we all take the same oath. gwen: as republicans pondered reinvention. >> we have to stop being the stupid party. and it's time for a new republican party that talks like adults. >> and as congress geared up for a new battle. >> we're now going to focus on the real problem, which is not ththe tax too little but that we spend too much. >> the president's stared down the republicans. they blinked. gwen: the parties are over. now the hard part begins. covering the week, dan ball of "the washington post," martha raddatz of abc news, jeanne cummings of bloomberg news, and

john harwood of cnbc and "the new york times." >> award-winning reporting and analysis, covering history as it happens. live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill. corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here. to connect our forces to what they need when they need it. >> to help troops see danger. before it sees them. >> to answer the call of the brave and bring them safely home. >> around the globe the people of boeing are working together to support and protect all who serve. >> that's why we're here. >> additional corporate funding for "washington week" is

provided by prudential, additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation. the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. president barack obama returned to the west front of the capitol to take the oath of office on monday. four years older, grayer and he hopes wiser. >> we must act knowing that today's victories will be only partial and that it will be up to those who stand here in 4 years and 40 years and 400 here's hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare philadelphia hall. gwen: dan writing in "the washington post" summed it up this way -- four years ago the president said, come let us reason together. this year he was there to say, follow me.

so whatever happened to the kumbaya moment, dan? >> well, as you suggest, this is an older and wiser president then we saw four years ago. i mean, i had the feeling when you think back to the first inaugural address, he said things that he had to say. partly because of the campaign he ran and partly because of the condition of the country. and i thought in this inaugural address he said things heeally wanted to say. he wanted to talk about a vision for the country that i think came much more directly from inside of him. and he has accepted the reality that this is a divided country. he came into office i think thinking he might be able to through force of personality and leadership transcend some of those differences. and it's been clear he's not been able too that for a variety of reasons. i think he approaches the second term with that in mind. so what he did was he talked about the america he believes we are and that he would like us to be. and basically said to people, here's where i would like to go. let's see if we can do it. gwen: the first wave of analysis

had it this is a liberal speech. finally the inner liberal has broken free. was it really? >> i think there was a lot in there people could say that was certainly the case. i mean, when you look at some of the specifics he talked about. it's not climate change is a liberal issue but he cast it in a way of there are people who are disbelievers in climate science and i'm on the other side. no president has ever talked about gay rights in an inaugural address and him linking civil rights and women's rights and gay rights and mentioning the stonewall uprising that gave birth to the gay rights movement was i thought a significant articulation of a vision of where the country is. >> that may be his vision but can he really get there? and particularly with a speech like that. certainly it had to do with being a second term as well. but with a speech like that, which was really sort of an in-your-face speech, how does he get what he wants? >> well, i think it is the obvious question, and i mean one

thing you can say is, well, the way he tried in the first term, he does not think was successful. he got some things done obviously. got some big things done with health care. but in the end he wasn't able to get those things done with that style of leadership. so he's going to try something new. i don't know that it will work. gwen: does the speech help or hurt that? >> the speech makes clear he's adopting a different approach. one of the things he said was, we're not going to resolve centuries old debates about the role of government completely. but we can do something. we should act. that's a different way of talking about it then he had before. >> dan, i agree he's got more bounce in his step and edgier approach to dealing with republicans. but in some ways i find the idea that he's left behind hope and change a little bit confusing because in the first term, from the beginning of the time he took office, republicans said in the beginning, partisan stimulus, partisan health care plan, partisan financial reform, partisan climate change, cap and

trade bill. what's really changed other then the sense of determination he has to confront them? >> i think a couple of things, john. one is, you know, he would offer a different vision or description of what happened in that first term. he would say on a number of those things, the stimulus package, he would say, i put things in there that were in fact things that republicans favored. there were a lot more taxes then i might have put in there. but they decided from the beginning they weren't going to support it. i worked very hard to try to get republicans at least a few republicans to come aboard on health care. and in the end, nobody would because they decided they would oppose it. i think he's accepted that is in a sense the starting popot of where things are and so he's going to try to adopt a different approach. yes, i want to work with people who are prepared to have a sense of common ground but he's not saying, i'm going to go to the middle or bend over backwards to

compromise. i mean, in the weeks after the election, he drew some very clear lines on fiscal cliff, for example. i mean he said, tax rates on wealthy individuals had have to go up. that's a firmer way of approaching these then he sometimes did in the past. >> dan, one of the things that was very different from his first speech is that this speech he didn't appear to talk to republicans. and nor did he reach out to the middle. when we talk about that it was a very -- had a lot of progressive elements in it, they were applause lines that seemed directed right at core democratic constituencies. so who do you think his target audience was? is the country behind him now or is it once again he's just solidified the same base we've come to know the last four years? >> i think he's concluded, and i think it's a fair conclusion, there are voters in this country who will not be with him. years ago or seven or eight

years ago, we talked about how democrats were looking for ways to win over rural america. this speech that he gave is an indication that he's not looking to try to win over rural america. there are some democrats in states with a lot of rural ter for dwhray will have to figure out what to do on this gun control issue. but he's talking about the coalition that has elected him. which he thinks, i think at this point, is a jrt coalition. >> did get a majority of the vote twice. very few presidents have done it. >> right. if he can rally that part of the country enough, he thinks he can put more pressure on the republicans. i think the other thing that he's try to do is in a sense split conservative pragmatists and conservative hard liners and looking to those republicans who may be quite conservative but who feel like he does that certain things have to get done. gwen: so he's off next week to las vegas to talk about immigration refefm. he has joe biden in virginia talking about guns. he's taking it outside of the

beltway, a term i hate, but which is exactly what he's trying to do to get all of this done. thanks, dan. so perhaps next thing falls into the category of spoils of victory. or perhaps it would have happened anyway. but history was made at the pentagon this week which outgoing defense secretary leon panetta lifted the ban on women serving in direct combat. >> it's clear to all of us that women are contributing in unprecedented ways to the military's mission of defending the nation. women represent 15% of the force , over 200,000. the fact is that they have become an integral part of our ability to perform our mission. gwen: speaking of performing her mission, secretary of state hillary clinton went to capitol hill for the first time to talk about the americans killed in benghazi. >> as i have said many times, i

take responsibility, and nobody is more committed to getting this right. i am determined to leave the state department and our country safer, stronger and more secure. gwen: we will get to the an and unanswered questions from secretary clinton's testimony in a moment. but first so many women already serving in combat. the question is, what practical effect, martha, will lifting this ban actually have? >> well, first of all, it can open hundreds of thousands of jobs to women that they cannot perform now, that they're not allowed to have. but i think if you want to look long term, you saw the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. he's a man. you saw joint chiefs, they're all men. you really can't get there unless you have had combat experience, unless you have led the infantry. you're not going to get into positions like that. yes, there are some female four stars but they're lower. you look at variety of services, they're not people who have been in combat and you can't be

chairman of the joint chiefs if you can't. practically there are women who i met overerhere who are elated by this. it makes them equal. even though they're not going to lower standards. they made that very clear. they're not going to lower standards and none of the women want them to lower standards. >> marriagia, how do you think not just women currenting serving, women on the outside will react to this? will there be more recruitment? >> and men? >> and men as well. >> i don't think you will see a whole lot of women rushing to be in the infantry or special forces or special operations forces. but i do think because it opens up younger women might try to do that. that may be something you want to do some way. certainly i have met women who like to be part of special operations, who would like to be navy seal someday. last year the former head of joint special operations command told me he thought it was time to open this up to woman. i have to read you this quote from 1991. this is how far we've come. robert barrow, former commandant

of the marine corps in 1991. extreme environments, brutality, death dirksing. it's uncivilized and women can't do it, nor thank you they even be thought of as doing it. we have come so far and the number one reason is because we have had all of these women in iraq and afghanistan, in these wars, fighting these wars even though not on the official front line and dyeing. 152 women have died in these conflicts, 800 wounded. >> martha, in addition to opening up a lot of jobs, what actually is the practical effect of this? how do they phase it in? are there issues they have to yet resolve once you lift the ban? >> first of all, they're giving this a lot of time. implementation not until the beginning of 2016. you're going to have -- i talked to some young male soldiers who don't like this. it's sort of like this that you heard 20 years ago, we don't want women there. it will ruin the band of

brothers. they're going to go slow with this. women will want them to go slow too. they want to do it right. they want the standards to be the same. they want to look at who's qualified for these jobs because they're not going to push them into these jobs. those are mistakes they made with aviators in the very beginning. putting females in. gwen: we promised we would talk about hillary clinton's testimony. there was a lot of talk about the emotion and yelling and it was very watchable. but i guess the question after the hearing was over i wondered is whether she answered the questions. do we know what happened and why it happened in the end? not who w.h.o. said what after the fact but what happened leading up to it? >> i think my biggest memory from there other then the drama of that is that hillary clinton basically said look, i didn't read those cables. i didn't know they asked for more security. if you look specifically at what happened, there's an accountability review board. they looked at this. they already, the state department has implemented all of these changes and hillary clinton said, we're going to keep doing that.

they relieved four people from their jobs but those people are really somewhere else in the state department. so i think it's something we really have to wait and see what's changed. i think there really is more to learn here. >> martha, what is the answer to the question hillary clinton posed to senator johnson, which is what difference does it make -- >> why does it matter? >> what difference does it make the explanation immediately offered as for why the attack took place? >> and they're talking specifically about susan rice, u.n. ammador who really probably could have been secretary of state and all of this controversy knot aside, that's what hillary clinton was talking about. what does it matter if susan rice said it started as a protest instead of a terrorist attack? i think that's the kind of statement that actually could come back and haunt her someday. hillary clinton saying what does it matter that she said that or we didn't know those first issues. >> you think that is a critical question? >> i think saying what does it matter. do i think it's a critical question?

i think that's been -- i think the issue has been put to bed ut but i think by saying what does it matter, it might come back and haunt her. gwen:ky see it in a campaign ad, taken out of context. >> exactly. gwen: thanks, martha. on a greek where democrats got their -- week where democrats got their groove back, what happens with republicans? two ways, looking for change from within and looking for opportunities to regain the offensive. newly elected republican national company committee had this to say at a party meeting today -- >> there's one clear overriding lesson from november, we didn't have enough voters. i'm no math whiz. i'm an attorney. but i don't need a calculator to know that we need to win more votes. gwen: in congress the fight is a fiscal one as republican lawmakers look for ways to regain the upper hand on debt and spending debates. >> we should start with spending and debt, because if we don't get a handle on that, nothing else matters.

gwen: what are party leaders saying, jeanne? >> well, with wa all due re -- with all due respects to their colleagues in washington, the message down at charlotte at the r.n.c. meeting was, let's change the subject. they very much coming out there was a sense their leaders in washington have become reactive. they have become trapped by these fiscal debates. what the party needs to do is expand and elevate their dialogue with the public and to put a spotlight on some of the governors. sput a spotlight on the work that they do in the state. basically turn the page on this last election and move on and start talking about, again, how would they lead and show how they would lead by showing the governors. jobby jindal gave the keynote address. and it was interesting in one -- at one point in his address he said that the party had become so fixated by these fiscal clashes with the white house,

that we seem to have an obsession with government book keeping. s this a rigged game and wrong game for us to play. gwen: let me ask john this, what happened this week, kicking in the debt ceiling deadline farther away, was that rigging? was that government book keeping in the eyes of the leaders here in washington? >> i think it's adjusting the game and changing some of the contours of the game and making sure that the contest did not have the same kind of heat and high stakes for the economy for markets, for everybody's 401-k out there that people perceived and if we really got up to the brink of a potential default or united states not being able to meet all of its obligations, you know, i'm not sure on the point that bobby jindal and others were making at the meeting in north carolina, i'm not sure the -- what republicans are about, if they're not talking about the

size of government, cost of government, tax and spending issues, they will have to deal with those but at the moment they didn't want to deal with them in quite such a pressurized environment so john boehner was able to convince his caucus to accept the council to move past the debt limit. they're now shifting to other fiscal fights and we will have a series through february, march, april, may. which is when the debt limit current extension is going to run out. but i think they're hoping they can take some of the pressure off. >> go ahead. gwen: what are some of the specific fixes here? talk about leadership and they want to talk about leadership and show something different. what are they actually -- >> that's where there's a real disconnect in what the r.n.c. is doing. jindal's speech was all about messaging and framing the party. but when you look at the panel that newly elected r.n.c. chairman ryan previous has put

together to come up with specific recommendations how t t fix things and improve competitiveness -- gwen: the growth and opportunity project. i love that name. >> yeah, it sounds like a federal bill, doesn't >> big government there. >> yes, but they're all tactics. they're all about tactics. on abortion, let's not talk about mean about our fellow republicans who support abortion rights. they're not going to change their policy. they're going to change their rhetoric. talking about limiting number of debates in the primary. there were 20 last time. they want to control it this time. that may be a laudable goal but that's not what's going to move latinos to vote for them. gwen: maybe it will if they stop talking about positions. >> they won't say things like self-support. at any rate their solutions thus far from the committee and from the chairman have been really tactical. they want more technology so they can reach out to voters. they want to launch -- they want

to launch a continual conversation with their supporters, modeling obama's organization in which they were constantly, they e-mailed their people all the time. r.n.c. would, you know, raise money and stockpile it and then let it all go. gwen: no grand strategy? >> not yet. >> the jindal speech to me was interesting in part because it did say let's put -- let's put a focus back on the states and the governors. many time when's a party is in a situation like the republicans are in today, the governors do lead it back. but i was struck by the tone of that speech and content of the speech in a sense basically saying, we should not be talking about government and governing. yet he's the governor of a state. all of these others have -- they're trying to put in place in the states a conservative model for governing. i thought there might be more in that was their reaction to that within the party about what he wasn't saying or what he should

have been saying in that context? >> i think the sense of his message on how do you balance the fact you're going to run a government but he's saying let's not get trapped in a conversation about government, that disconnect isn't what captured the people there. it was don't stay stupid things. again, great advice but, you know, that's not a long-term vision. that's not a long-term plan. gwen: here's the part we're talking about. what is happening in washington is governing. it's messy, it's not pretty to look at. right now what we're facing are too more deadlines. march 1 deadline, which means across the board budget cuts could kick in and to listen to paul ryan this week will kick in. at the end of march, potential government shutdown. which is exactly what those folks in charlotte are saying. no, please don't do that. how do they cope with that here, inside game versus outside game? >> they have trouble on both of those fronts because to the extent that the republican party becomes more modern on some of more social issues, they run the

risk of alienating their conservative christian allies, whore very important. the opposition to governor spending is one of the unifying characteristics of the republican party. and we have trillion dollar deficits right now. and republicans, not just since the tea party, before the tea party, had been acting in reaction to what they had seen for decades from democrats, some of which they saw from george w. bush. they have to figure out a strategy to approach shrinking the size of government, shrinking deficits, allowing tax rates to remain low without running head-long into the american people and argument that bill clinton -- president obama seems to prevail on in the election about the role of government. so it's going to get harder for republicans too. remember, paul ryan budget that was so productive on medicare pushed all of the cuts out ten years in the future. now, in order to get the votes to allow the debt ceiling to be raised three months, speaker boehner promised his members the opportunity to vote on a budget

that would be balanced within ten years. you can't tell people between 55 and 65, don't listen to this anyway. cure not going to be affected by this. if you balance the budget in ten years. so they're their challenge in winning over americans to the vision of smaller government and practical way is getting tougher. gwen: when you see something like the senator from georgia who says today he's not going to run. he said nothing to do with the fact he split had tea party challenge coming up. but people like that, mitch mcconnell, senate minority leader, getting a little nervous. >> i think that is a real link between what john is talking about. in that the people who are in office have got to worry about the tea party and its demands for these really significant cuts. and then you have r.n.c. down in charlotte saying, let's not focus on those things anymore at an event, by the way, where no tea party person was invited. how can they balls these two

things if they don't engage that wing in the in the conversation? >> i think what john bane cere counting on, and he's counting on it within washington and hopefully by extension the country, is people being hardened themselves by the experience they had going up against the president, losing this past election and realizing they've got to be more pragmatic about it and ultimately for republican voters and republican politicians, pragmatism has to be the route back. that's what democrats used as their route back when bill clinton helped lead the way. gwen: this is what happens when the losers lose and winners win. people in position to figure out what comes next are almost always winners. thank you, everybody. we have to leave you for now but conversation continues online on the "washington week" webcast, where among other things we will talk about senior republican who said democrats want to annihilate his party. also,th gwio us downwi memory heul t. we e 15 years ago niva gh e co monica the breaking lewinsky scandal. that's at pbs.org/washingtonweek.

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